U.S. Capital Spycams Get Censured

As Washington D.C. rolls out an unprecedented surveillance network, the populace begins to fight back.

The shock of 9/11 is wearing off. Whereas in the months following the attacks just about anything done in the name of law and order met only muted opposition, elected officials are now regaining their voices.

Following revelations in the Wall Street Journal that Washington's Metropolitan Police Department is building the nation's largest network of surveillance cameras to monitor goings on in the U.S. capital, Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-Md.), chair of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, sent the Washington police a chilly Valentine. She announced yesterday that she would hold a hearing to examine the District of Columbia's surveillance efforts.

"I am holding this hearing out of my concern that the pendulum between security and privacy is beginning to swing too far in one direction," she said in a statement. "These surveillance programs are advancing without the appropriate and necessary public debate about their consequences."

Robert White, communications director for the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia and spokesman for Congresswoman Morella, says that Morella believes there should be a balance between security, openness, and privacy. He says no date for the hearing has been set.

Asked for a comment, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department said it might be while before someone responded as there were more than 700 press queries pending.